Hamdi Qandil ( Ḥamdī Qandīl, also Romanized Qandeel or Kandil; 1936 – 31 October 2018) was a prominent Egyptian journalist, news anchor, talk show host and activist.Said, Rania. A Few Good Men: Hamdi Qandeel . Identity Magazine. 2011. Qandil started his journalism career in the 1950s when he wrote for the Akher Sa'a ("Last Hour") magazine at the invitation of veteran journalist Mustafa Amin. In 1961 he began broadcasting a news show called Aqwal al-Suhuf ("In the Press") until 1969 when he was appointed director of the Arab Broadcasting Studios Union. In 1971 he left his post in protest at a government inspection of his technical staff. He later worked with UNESCO from 1974 to 1986, specializing in the field of international media. In 1987 he co-founded a satellite broadcasting company that later became known as MBC, where he worked for three months before leaving because of political differences with its management. Qandil briefly presented the show Ma'a Hamdi Qandil ("With Hamdi Qandil") for ART, but left amid disagreements between him and his managers regarding Qandil's planned interviews with Muammar Gaddafi and Tariq Aziz.
He returned to Egyptian television in 1998, hosting the current affairs and press review talk show Ra'is el-Tahrir ("Editor-in-Chief"). The program became one of the most popular and respected in Egypt. After apparent trouble with the state censors, Qandil moved the show to Dubai TV in 2004 under the name Qalam Rosas ("Pencil"). The new program was highly watched throughout the Arab world. He was forced to quit Dubai TV after criticizing Arab governments and subsequently hosted the show on the Libyan channel Al-Libiya for two months before the Libyan government cancelled it. He returned to Egypt and wrote for the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper and then Al-Shorouk, but his association with the latter ended as a result of a libel suit brought on by then-Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in response to a column critical of Egyptian foreign policy written by Qandil in May 2010. The case was later dropped following the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.
Qandil was well known for his pan-Arabist discourse and fierce criticism of the Egyptian and other Arab governments.Veteran Journalist Hamdi Kandil Discusses Revolution at AUC. The American University in Cairo. 6 March 2011.Nasrawi, Saif. Pro-ElBaradei journalist faces criminal trial over minister 'insult'. Egypt Independent. Originally published by Agence France-Presse. 9 June 2010. According to Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies political analyst Diaa Rashwan, Qandil "is a great Egyptian journalist and highly credible, he is bold and gives constructive criticism ... people listen to him and take what he says seriously, which is why he poses a threat" to the government. Prior to the Egyptian revolution, Qandil co-founded the National Association for Change, a reformist group headed by Mohamed ElBaradei. From September 2012, Qandil had lent his support to the Egyptian Popular Current opposition movement.
Early life
Childhood Qandil was born in Cairo in 1936 to a father from Menoufia. He was the eldest of five children. Qandil spent much of his childhood and had his primary schooling in the Nile Delta city of Tanta. His father had moved the middle-income family to that city, where he owned a few feddans of land mostly planted with pears and grapes. Qandil's father primarily distributed them to neighbors and others close to him.Dularamani, Sajini. Hamdi Qandil: 'The singer, not the song' . Al-Ahram Weekly. 21 April 1999.
During Qandil's boyhood, he borrowed and read books from a medical practice and a culture and sporting association in Tanta on a near weekly basis. He also learned field hockey there. Qandil was at the top of his class throughout his later school years and initially sought to enter the medical profession, a typical career aspiration for students with high marks. His mother particularly encouraged him to become a doctor. Qandil simultaneously took an interest in writing, Arabic calligraphy and foreign languages.
Journalism career and education Qandil was introduced to journalism when he began writing a secondary school research paper. During that time, he also wrote an article for the low-budget Tanta newspaper Al Ikhlas, criticizing King Farouk for spending one million pounds from the treasury to purchase a yacht called the "Mahrousa". He was fired soon after, but had since grown fond of journalism. Due to this new interest and his father's increasingly poor health, Qandil did not complete the first stage of his medical studies, causing his 1952 application to medical school to be rejected. He instead enrolled in the department of geology at Alexandria University. In July of that year, King Farouk was overthrown by a group of dissenting officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, leading to the subsequent establishment of a republican system under the presidency of leading officer Muhammad Naguib.
Qandil spent two months studying geology and decided to retake his high school examinations in order to enter into medical school. He performed well and was admitted to Cairo University's Qasr El-Ainy Faculty of Medicine in 1953. He continued in his studies until 1956, by which time Nasser had become president. During this period he also joined the National Guard. Together with some of his fellow students he founded his college's official magazine, which they printed through the Akhbar el-Yom publishing house. The magazine's first edition was confiscated due to an article Qandil wrote that was critical of university professors and regulations. Shortly after completing his final exams in 1956, Qandil was offered a writing position with Akher Sa'a ("Last Hour") magazine by its owners, the prominent journalists and brothers Mustafa Amin and Ali Amin. Mustafa employed Qandil with a salary of 15 Egyptian pounds and initially tasked him with writing the horoscope and a column that responded to letters from readers. Qandil was asked by Amin to serve as an editor for Akher Sa'a in 1961.
That year Qandil also attended the International Union of Students in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where he met Yasser Arafat, then the head of the General Union of Palestinian Students. Later in 1956 Qandil was accepted into the department of journalism, obtaining a license (bachelor's degree) in journalism in 1960. Four years later he received a diploma in journalism from the Berlin Institute. Throughout this period he wrote for the magazine Al-Tahrir, earning a salary of 25 Egyptian pounds, and also worked with Al-Jamahir magazine in Damascus.
Career in television and the UN In 1961 Qandil began to work in broadcast television as the presenter of the program Aqwal al-Suhf ("In the Press"). In 1966 he became a media adviser to a television studio in Jordan, a role which ended after six weeks; the single broadcast of Aqwal al-Suhuf in Jordan was met with consternation from the Jordanian royal government and after Qandil was notified of this disapproval, he immediately returned to Egypt where he continued presenting the program. His position in Aqwal al-Suhuf ended in 1969 with his appointment as director of the Arab Broadcasting Stations Union (ABSU).
In early May 1971 Qandil left the ABSU after refusing to launch a disciplinary investigation of the technical team that recorded the Labor Day speech given by Anwar Sadat, who became president following Nasser's death in 1970. He left at a time when numerous broadcasters and media personalities were removed from their positions during Sadat's Corrective Revolution. However, he briefly returned to television in 1973 to announce Egypt's claimed victory in the Yom Kippur War with Israel in October of that year.
Qandil was appointed manager of the Department of the Free Flow of Information and Communication Policies for UNESCO in 1974. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Qandil stated that while at UNESCO he "specialised in satellite communications and published several books and studies" dealing with global media and broadcasting. During this time he strongly pushed to include Palestine as a member and attempted to remove the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore from the organization. According to his own account, he was also able to master the English and French languages, and gain experience in diplomacy. He left UNESCO in 1986.
Together with partners from Egypt and the Arab world, Qandil co-founded the Eastern Satellite Communications Company in 1987. Its main purpose was to serve broadcasting station that would target Arabic-speaking communities in the Western world and to counter what Qandil perceived as Western bias in global media. However, in 1992, as a result of financial difficulties the company was sold and subsequently became the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC). Qandil worked at MBC for roughly three months until he quit, citing political differences with the station's managers, who considered him a Nasserist. That same year, he was offered to host his own show at Arab Radio and Television (ART), but initially opted to work on a project setting up a private Egyptian station for Al-Ahram. The station was not launched and Qandil took up a position at ART in 1996 where he hosted his own show called With Hamdi Qandil. Qandil's arrangements to interview Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on the anniversary of the 1969 coup that brought him to power, and also Tariq Aziz, the vice president of Iraq at the time, aroused controversy among ART's managers. He quit thereafter.
Ra'is el-Tahrir and Qalam Rosas In 1998 Qandil responded favorably to the invitation of Safwat El-Sherif, the Information Minister in Hosni Mubarak's government, to return to Egyptian television. In March his program Ra'is el-Tahrir ("Editor-in-Chief") began airing. Qandil stated he returned to Egyptian television because he felt he owed "a debt of gratitude to the institution that built my fame when I was in my twenties. Also, working in Egypt is more immediately rewarding than anywhere else." With the relaxation of media restrictions during this period, Ra'is el-Tahrir became one of the most popular and respected television programs in Egypt. Describing the relative freedom afforded to the media, Qandil stated in 2001 that the situation was an improvement from when he first began the program, but "as long as there remains a censor, we will continue to ask for more [freedom of expression]."Elbandary, Amina. TV meets the madding crowd . Al-Ahram Weekly. 20 June 2001.
Ra'is el-Tahrir was intended to serve as a weekly review of the pan-Arab press, but in practice the program became a medium through which Qandil expressed his opinions on various issues confronting Egypt and the Arab world, views which he claimed were representative of the popular Egyptian sentiment. Al-Ahram Weekly′s Amina Elbandary wrote that during the show, Qandil spoke "in histrionic style, his commentary replete with daring questions and remarks. Viewers are fascinated by his apparent lack of inhibition."
In the wake of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that began in 2000, the show became dominated by the conflict, which Qandil generally regarded as a campaign of Israeli aggression. He frequently broadcast the Israeli military's actions during the Intifada and called for viewers to support the uprising and boycott Israeli products. Qandil responded to a query regarding his extensive coverage of the Intifada by saying, "How are news shows expected to react to events such as the Intifada? Are we supposed to keep silent?"